About 20,000 prisoners are currently sitting in jail for crimes they did not do. Think about being behind bars, not having freedom, away from your family, and knowing you are there for no reason and there is nothing you can do. In the Netflix series “Making a Murderer” Steven Avery is charged for crimes he obviously did not commit. Steven Avery was born on July 9th, 1962 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Avery family is very different from the rest of the town and they feel the county had a bias against them for years. Steven Avery has an IQ of 70 and barely functioned in school. Steven is known to admit to his flaws and own up to the wrong he’s done, but no matter how many times he denies he is still the prime suspect. Penny Beernsten was …show more content…
A search party went looking for evidence or signs and came across a vehicle that they believe belonged to Teresa. They immediately called the sheriff’s department and had a search done. The car was found on the Avery Salvage. Inside the car blood was found that belonged to Steven Avery. The keys to Teresa’s vehicle were found inside Steven’s home. Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey was questioned by the officers and gave a shocking confession. Dassey says he and Steven sexually assaulted Teresa then killed her. Avery and Dassey were arrested and are currently serving life in prison for …show more content…
The key to Teresa’s vehicle was tested and only Steven’s DNA was present. For only Steven’s DNA to be present is impossible because if they key belonged to Teresa her DNA would be present also. Dassey says Steve told him to slit her throat. Looking back at the interrogation tapes of Brendan Dassey it is clear that the officers are making him come up with a story they want to hear. At one point an officer comes out and asks who shot Teresa himself because Brendan was not going in the direction he wanted him to. Because Brendan has learning disabilities and an IQ of 70 he was unclear that everything he said to the officers would go towards a confession. Also the Avery Salvage is open to the public anyone could have murdered or hurt Teresa and planted her car on the Avery
Intro Brendan Dassey and his uncle Steven Avery were convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach. It was Brendan's confession to police that Inevitably put him behind bars, however, there is still doubt on the legitimacy of his confession to the Manitowoc Police Department. Background Brendan Dassey was a quiet teenager with a below average intelligence. On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 Brendan is taken from school by police.
This has led many people to believe that Avery was framed and there is still a murderer on the loose whilst others believe that he wasn’t given a fair trial no matter his innocence. They believe that there may have been previous bias and bribery in the jury because of Avery’s criminal past. Some also protest that Dassey was manipulated and brainwashed into admitting a crime that he did not commit. There is also numerous theories regarding a stolen blood vial of Avery’s that his blood was planted in Halbach’s vehicle, that the keys were planted by officers during 6-day search of the Avery property, or that the remains were scattered by an unknown source. There is nothing as of now that proves or disproves that Avery and Dassey were not involved in the murder of Theresa Halbach.
Steven Hicks was a 19 year old last seen hitchhiking to a rock concert in Chippewa Lake Park when he was brutally murdered. The suspect was later found that he brought Hicks to his home, where he got him drunk, and upon Hicks trying to escape was when he was hit among the head with a ten pound dumbbell. Further investigation found that Hicks’ body was dismembered, having his bones crushed by a sledgehammer and scattered outside the house; also he left the flesh to be found by police underneath the house three years after the murder. This suspect would be later revealed as Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer who committed rape, murder, torture, and the dismemberment of 17 innocent boys between 1978 and 1991.
At the trial, Steven pleaded not guilty for the entire thing, but there were three pieces of evidence securing the conviction. The first piece of evidence, was that Lynne died before 7:45 p.m. This was crucial because Truscott was back on the school grounds at 8pm, so if Harper had died past 8pm, Truscott would have had alibi. Although this evidence was backed up by Dr. Penistan, who had performed Harper's autopsy, and stated that based on the contents of Lynne's stomach, he believed that she died before 7:45 p.m. on the night she disappeared. Even though there were two prior possibilities as to when Harper had died, that would have proven Truscott innocent, the court still accepted this because there was more evidence to consider. The second
Avery’s conviction was based solely on eyewitness testimony. Little to no investigation was conducted in this case, and Avery was denied some of his most basic rights upon his initial imprisonment. Although Steven Avery was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, he was not all that innocent prior to his conviction. According to www.stevenaverytrial.com, Avery was convicted of numerous crimes prior to being sentenced to his 32 years for rape.
Steven had many ways he could have covered up the crime. The car could have been wrecked he owned a salvage why didn't he crush the car? He could have buried the bones after burning them, buried the key far away and disposed or buried the bullets far away. Everything was found in plain sight just like the detectives would have wanted it to be, it was placed. The evidence was planted by multiple people.
Throughout the trial Steven claimed he had nothing to do with the assault, however, he was still found guilty. In 2002, the Wisconsin Innocence Project took Avery's case. As a result of improvements in DNA testing, they were able to exonerate Avery in 2003 based on DNA evidence indicating that someone other than Avery committed the crime. The DNA was matched to one Gregory Allen.
In the documentary Making a Murder, Brendan Dassey, nephew of Stephen Avery, gave a testimony that implicated himself and Avery in the murder of Teresa Halback (Demos, Ricciardi, 2015). Among one of the many issues presented within the documentary was the treatment that Dassey received. Dassey had an IQ of 70 and was taking special education classes (Demos, Ricciardi, 2015). Dassey’s IQ was lower than average but almost on the edge of intellectual disability (Dassey v Dittman, 2016, p.5). After giving the confession, he asked if he would be able to get back to class by a certain time to turn in a project (Demos, Ricciardi, 2015).
She contacted the police right away after the incident had happened. She described the man to the sketch artist and when he finished it closely resembled Steven Avery. Avery was already in the system so this made him the number one suspect. Avery denied that he did anything to Beernsten, but no one believed him except his immediate family. He did however have a strong alibi, as well as a total of sixteen witnesses to prove that Avery was innocent.
Jeffrey Dahmer was manipulative therefore, he was able to convince his victims to come to his house where he drugged them, and got rid of the pieces of the bodies. This is how he was able to get rid of evidence. The police couldn’t hunt down and arrest someone for the murders, simply because people have disappeared. There needs to be a body, or some other physical evidence, of a murder before anyone can be arrested. This is why this serial killer was able to avoid being caught for so
Tommy Lynn Sells at the time of her son's murder had been linked to committing similar crimes in several different states. Sells after being arrested and convicted of a similar crime admitted that he killed Joel Kirkpatrick and struggled with Julie inside of the home. He stated that he had broken into their home through a window and stabbed Joel to death with a knife he took from Julie’s butcher block (The National Registry of Exonerations, 2012). The details he provided were not released to the public and they matched exactly what Julie had been saying all along. The Downstate Innocence Project was able to conjure up evidence that puts Sells in the area at the time of Joel’s murder and along with his confession that was all they needed to prove Julie Rea’s innocence.
Allen was then serving a 60-year prison term for a sexual assault in Green Bay that occurred after the attack on Beernsten. On September 11, 2003, a request brought by the Manitowoc District Attorney’s Office and the Wisconsin Innocence Project to dismiss the charges was granted and Avery was released. In 2005, with support from Beernsten and Avery, the Wisconsin Department of Justice implemented a model eyewitness identification procedure. Unfortunately for Avery, that wasn’t going to be his only bad encounter with justice. On October 31, 2005, photographer Teresa Halbach was scheduled to meet with Steven Avery at his home on the grounds of Avery 's Auto Salvage to photograph a minivan for Auto Trader Magazine.
If you were blamed for a crime you didn’t do, would you let that accusation go and let it tarnish your reputation? Would you let it fly by and have others judge from every angle? No, right? Normally people who get accused of crimes demand justice as they know they did not commit the crime and only justice can give them the freedom they deserve. But let’s look at Steve Harmon, the main character from the book Monster by Walter Dean Myers who was on trial for murder.
The Innocence Project has been able to lend aid to many individuals, who without their help, would not have seen life outside of prison again. The most well-known client of The Innocence Project is Steven Avery, whom is essentially famous due to a documentary series which followed his struggle for freedom. (Thesis) The Innocence Project is a national and international public organization committed to absolving wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and dedicated to the reconstruction of the criminal justice system, in order prevent any further injustice of innocent men or women. Many have been freed with the help of The Innocence Project and the advances in DNA testing, one of the most well-known clients being Steven Avery whom at the age of 22 was wrongfully convicted of
Roy Brown 1992 Murder & Exoneration Case The United States currently has the most incarcerated people in the world. Most do not know that there are more than two million people currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons. It is estimated that around 2.3% - 5 % of those prisoners are actually innocent. If the number was just one percent, that would mean that 20,000 people currently imprisoned are innocent (Ferner). Roy Arthur Brown, a father of three and guitar teacher from New York, was one of those 20,000+ people that were falsely imprisoned.